The Signing

Today Jason and I had our signing. That's almost the same as closing in PA, except no keys are exchanged, and the seller isn't there. Just the buyers, the title company, and the buyer's real estate agent. We signed and signed and signed, then we handed over a freaking huge check, then we left. Next step is for the Escrow company to file the papers, the county records the deed, and then Monday we get keys. Official time is 9:00 pm, but our agent is going to see if we can't get them sooner.

So, it's almost official - just a few more days and we can start moving boxes! Thanks for the box suggestions everyone gave. I wound up asking at Safeway the other day when I was grocery shopping, and they hooked me up big time. I packed about 8 boxes of books that I'm going to donate to the Seattle Public Library. They have a huge book sale twice a year...and I mean huge...it's in an old aircraft hanger, and it's always packed. The neighbor and I are going to drop the boxes off tomorrow. She has a van, and she's going to go through her stuff too.

Kelsey registered for driver's education yesterday. She can go any time now and get her permit. Needless to say, she's very excited. Needless to say, I'm scared to death. Seattle is not a fun place to drive. Or park. I'm sure she'll be fine, but it's hard to think about.

Moving blues

As excited as I am to move into our new house, I just can't seem to get myself motivated to actually do any packing. Geez, I hate to move. I keep looking around thinking, this can be packed, that can be packed....but actually making any effort to do it seems to be beyond me. Maybe if I get some boxes, I'll feel ready. I tried Kris's suggestion and went across the street to the fruit stand, but all of their boxes were wet and soggy so I didn't take any. There's a craigslist posting today that someone has a bunch of free boxes in South Seattle - maybe I should call them.

Okay, people...motivate me.

American Idol - Seattle

Oh my goodness....what a bizarro collection of freaks that auditioned in Seattle. I did notice that the weirdest people were not actually from Seattle, but simply came here to audition. That does not prevent me from wanting to hide in shame however. Seattle just needs to pull the covers over its head and not go outside for a few days until the embarrassment goes away.

P.S. - someone from work sent me this link in case anyone wants to check out the MySpace pages of some of the more memorable Idol contestants:
http://deathbycamera.com/

Awesome detective work :-)

Oh.My.God

Umm...yeah. We bought a house.

Create a Free Slideshow

Can't talk too much about it, I'm still in shock. Closing is the end of January, so there's lots to get done between now and then. If all goes well, we'll get the keys on January 29. Thanks for everyone that sent good thoughts. More later :-)

Brrrrrrrr....

Wow, is it cold in Seattle. Yesterday I couldn't open the passenger door of Jason's car because it was frozen solid. I had to sit in the backseat. I was also the only one at work yesterday because nobody else could make it in on the icy roads. Whoever it was that told us it doesn't snow in Seattle was totally wrong. Kelsey had another snow day yesterday and a two hour delay this morning. Ick.

Jason is on a deadline this week so he's been working really late hours. Good news from his work though, they're covering his GDC trip to San Francisco in March, so all we need to cover is the airfare for me and Kelsey, and the extra two weekend nights at the hotel. How cool is that? Since that's being covered, we're going to look into some doggie ranch action for the beagles instead of leaving them alone again. The neighbor did a great job, but he'll be in school instead of on vacation so it'll be harder for him to keep to their schedule.

Oh, and we're looking at a house. But I'm not getting my hopes up so I'm not going to post too much about it. Just send us some really good thoughts the next few days please :-)

Holiday pics

Server has been down for a few days, so I've been unable to update. We're finally home and unpacked, and laundry has been done and things put away, so we're slowly getting back to normal routine.

Our holiday trip was fun, and it was so good to see all of our families again. I'm not going to post much, but I thought it would be nice to share some of our picture memories this time around.

Hanging out in Da'Burgh

We got to Pittsburgh Christmas day about 3:30, after a harrowing drive in the rain with a rental car that did not want to stay on the road. Jason's hands were in a death grip after 3 hours of trying hard to keep us all alive, while Kelsey and I slept. (me, fitfully...as I kept jerking awake every time we slipped to see if we were all about to die. Then I'd go back to sleep).

Christmas night we had dinner at Grandma Flo's house. It was the three of us, Mary and Hugo, Grandma Flo, Ron and Gail, and Robert. Lovely evening, and really good food. The next day, Megan and Robby arrived and Robby met everyone. We all dressed up in our finery, opened stockings in the living room, and went to the Duquesne Club for dinner. The same people, without Robert, met us there, and in addition was Ron's son Jordan and Mary's brother and sister-in-law from Colorado, Glen and Joanne.

Mary and Hugo had arranged a private room with a big dining room, a living room area and bathroom, so we all had some drinks and opened our secret santa gifts (I got a quilt kit!), then had dinner. As usual, it was delicious and I felt like I needed to be rolled out of the room. We then took Robby on a tour of the place, and went to the Men's Bar for a nightcap before coming home exhausted.

The next day Megan and Robby left and it was a pretty relaxing day. Jason took Kelsey driving while I hung around the house, then that night we went to see Ron and Autumn sing at a local bar/restaurant. There was a huge crowd of relatives there too, so many more people to see and say hi to.

Tonight there are about 20 relatives coming to Mary and Hugo's for a pizza party. Unfortunately, both Kelsey and Jason got my cold and are both fighting to breath right now. I think there will be many infected people after the party tonight :-(

Back in PA

After a very long day on Tuesday, we're finally back in Pennsylvania. I feel really lucky that our flight was Tuesday and not yesterday, because Denver had a gigantic snowstorm yesterday that closed the airport, and that's where we connected through. No problems on the flight except it just takes so damn long to get across the country. I can't wait until we can teleport.

We met Jonathan for dinner Tuesday night, he drove up from State College. It was really good to see him - he's lost 60 pounds since he started running, and he looks fantastic! I don't know why some girl hasn't snapped him up yet :-) We spent a few hours catching up, but he had to drive back to State College and work the next day, so it was a short visit.

Yesterday I spent the day being miserable, as I have a cold and had a raging headache most of the day. Kelsey spent the night at Pam's, so I was in bed by 7:30 at the hotel. I had a hard time getting to sleep though because of my headache, and then when we both were finally asleep, the phone rang. The hotel mixed up our 10:00 am wakeup call with a 1:oo am wakeup call. After a lot of tossing and turning and yet more aspirin, we finally went back to sleep. Luckily, I had set my phone alarm after the 1 am wakeup call, so it went off at 10, and I feel so much better. We're now off to take my mom to her eye appointment. Maybe I can finally enjoy being home today :-)

Christmas Party

Last night was fun. We mostly just ate and bowled...and had a few drinks (I had quite the headache this morning). No Wi for us, but Jason won a $50 gift card for Best Buy, so his winning streak continues. I said yesterday that I'm no Kris Kiner...but my husband is. I think this is the fourth thing he's won, and that's just when I've been with him. Heaven knows how much stuff he's been winning without me!

Kelsey is done with school for the year tomorrow. They have an hour early release, and then that's it for 2006. I think she's really looking forward to her break :-) She seems to like school a little better this year, but I think she'd still prefer not to go to school at all...she's just ready to start college. Three more years, after this one.

Terribly icky day today, so it was nice to come home and put on some jammies and watch the recording of The Biggest Loser...holy cow, the winner lost 214 pounds! That's amazing! He looked really good, as did all of them. Good for them for getting that done. Now getting ready for The Office and Survivor. We love Thursdays :-)

Busy times

Whew, it's been a while since I posted. Time has gotten away from me. I've been super busy these last weeks getting ready for Christmas....and I don't even have to worry about a tree, or decorations, or anything! But I've been doing a lot of shopping and even if most of it has been online, it's been time consuming. I think I'm done now though.

Tonight is Jason's company Christmas party. It's at some place called Garage downtown...it's like a billiards/bowling/bar place. They've booked a private room with 6 bowling lanes, some pool tables, and they're going to have some Texas Hold'em, Blackjack, and Craps tables set up. Same as last year, you use fake money to play, you trade your winnings in for tickets, and the tickets go into a drawing for prizes. Last year they gave away an X-Box 360 as their big prize. I'm no Kris Kiner, I didn't win anything. But it was fun anyway :-) Food, free drinks, and a bit of fun. Too bad it's just for adults, so Kelsey has to stay home :-(

Less than a week until we leave for PA and a whirlwind of Christmas activity. I'm not sure how much I'll be able to update before then, so Merry Christmas!

Oh, P.S. I got an A in Anthropology! I'm so glad that class is over.

Friday Harbor

Today we woke up rather early at the campground....I guess going to bed so early makes us get up early too. The girls walked around the campsite while I made breakfast tacos. We went and got some firewood from the office so we had mid morning s'mores too :-). We decided we would take the later ferry to Friday Harbor, and then have dinner there and come home.

The ferry was at 2:40, which got us to Friday Harbor at 3:45. It was so pretty there. Kelsey and I thought it reminded us of some of the towns in Alaska that we stopped in on our cruise last summer. There was still snow on the ground, and the stores were all decorated with lights for Christmas. It really is a pretty town. The only problem was all the shops closed at 5:30, and we had decided to eat before shopping, so we didn't have a whole lot of time to see much. Then we had to wait until 6:45 for the return ferry to Anacortes. Tomorrow I'll post a picture of the girls waiting to board.

There were only about 8 of us on board for the trip home, so it was pretty quiet. We got back to the cabin about 8:30 and everyone is in pajamas already. It's just too cold to sit outside, and we're out of firewood already :-) But I think the girls had a good time, so I'll say the trip was a success.

Birthday Camping

It's the first night of Kelsey's big birthday camping weekend. It took me 45 minutes longer to drive here than I had planned on, because the traffic was so bad on I-5. We couldn't leave as early as I would have liked because Elizabeth doesn't get home from school until almost 4, so we were on the road by 4:30. Got here at 6:15, the office was closed but the cabin lights were on, and the heat was on, so it was all good. The girls helped unpack, then put on their swimsuits and headed for the hot tub while I made dinner. I couldn't find where they keep the wood, but luckily I had picked up some charcoal today at the grocery store, so I made hot dogs on the portable grill. There are actually more people here than I would have expected for December.

After dinner we had ice cream cake - quickly melting ice cream cake - and then Kelsey opened her presents from Ayla and one from me and Jason. Ayla did a fantastic job on the presents. Kelsey got a Hanson book, a guitar pick necklace signed by Taylor Hanson, some knitting supplies from Ayla's mom, and a Wentworth Miller totebag. She was utterly thrilled by all of it. She got a video camera from me and Jason, and she says it's cute, so I hope she likes it. Seems pretty easy to work.

They're now in the other room of the cabin playing a game while I relax in bed. It's only 9 pm but since I can't find any wood we're not going to be sitting outside anytime soon. Hopefully I'll be able to score some tomorrow so I can make eggs for breakfast :-)

Snowy

Back from Austin, where we had a fantastic Thanksgiving trip. The Neibert Diaries does an excellent job in recapping the holiday, so interested parties can take a gander at that blog.

I got home to a new hard drive (thanks to my brother, Dell sent me a new one instead of a refurbished one), and after many many hours yesterday, I'm back online. Hoo-ray.

We got back in town just in time to experience the standstill that is Seattle when there's a bit of snow and ice. Woefully unprepared with salt or sand, and with Monday Night Football featuring the Seahawks, last night was a commuting nightmare. I'm awfully lucky that it only took me two hours to get home. The Seattle Times blog has some people traveling for over 11 hours. When I got to work today, only one other person had made it in, so I stayed for the whole day to cover. Kelsey had a snow day - and she thought those days were over when we left PA!

Supposed to get colder tonight, and another storm on Wednesday, then finally get warmer. Just in time for Kelsey's birthday camping trip this weekend!

Off to Austin

Seattle weather today:


Austin weather today:


Ummm...okay, we're ready to leave. Plane takes off at 3:45 pm tomorrow. It actually hailed today, along with thunder and lightning. That is a very rare occurrence in Seattle. The dogs were freaked. It's been raining for about 10 days now, and there's a bunch more in the forecast, so we are so looking forward to some sunshine.

We're all going to do the Turkey Trot 5 mile walk/run on Thursday morning, then watch Kirk deep fry the turkey for dinner. I'm anxious to taste deep fried turkey. I wonder if it'll look like deep fried snickers?

The boy next door came over tonight for dog instructions. I sure hope they behave while we're gone, but I'm not holding my breath. We put up a baby gate barrier so they're at least confined to the downstairs area, but they can still do a bunch of damage. Stephan is pretty responsible, so I'm not that worried. I just hope they don't drive him crazy enough to say he can't watch them over Christmas.

Don't know if I mentioned it to anyone, but my computer has died. I'm still waiting for the replacement hard drive to arrive, but in the meantime I haven't really been able to update. I'm using Jay's right now, but he's pretty protective of this bad boy so I can't take too long :-)

I'll post more from Austin. Happy Thanksgiving in advance!

Quick hello

Whew, the time is really flying. There's not too much to report, it's been pretty quiet here in Seattle. We're getting ready to settle into winter...the rain is definitely here for the season. It's been cold the last couple of days too. It makes you just want to hibernate.

Jason got his laptop back yesterday, so he's once again a happy camper. I hope this time there isn't anything wrong with it, because he's so lost without it :-). Luckily (or not) they were really in crunch mode at work the past few weeks so he's had little time to miss it. That's over for now though so he gets to come home at regular time again.

Yesterday was weigh and measure day with the trainer. After 4 weeks, the scale hasn't moved much, but we've both lost inches and that's the really important part. We worked so hard, I would have liked to see more progress in the numbers, but I know we're both wearing smaller clothes so I have to be satisfied with that.

I was thinking about Pam today, and wondering how she was doing with this being moving week. She must be really excited to be getting back into her own place with the girls. I hope everything goes well for her this weekend. I'm looking forward to seeing her new place when we come home in December.

Oooh, only about a week left to go before we leave for Austin for Thanksgiving. Hello sunshine!

R.I.P. Ed Bradley

I was very sad today when I saw that Ed Bradley died. He was one rockin' reporter. I always loved that this distinguished older guy on 60 minutes had a hoop earring. Can you picture Mike Wallace or Andy Rooney wearing a hoop earring? I don't think so. Ed, you will be missed.

Change in the training schedule this week. Mark came Monday, today, and then tomorrow. He couldn't make it on Wednesday. I missed the every other day training thing. Kelsey and I did some weight training on Tuesday, but I will admit we skipped working out yesterday. She had a ton of homework, I got home late from school, and it just didn't happen. I tried to make up for no workout by eating extra light yesterday. Monday is the big day, when we get weighed and measured. I honestly haven't seen that much weight come off...like maybe 3-4 pounds...but I definitely think I'm toning up. Someone at work today told me it looked like I was losing weight. Kelsey is definitely looking like she's toning too. She got into a smaller size jeans this week.

We both have a long weekend because of Veteran's Day tomorrow. Yay! We still have a workout scheduled at 3, but nothing planned the rest of the day. It's supposed to rain again anyway, so we'll just stay in and enjoy being dry.

Election Day

Time to rock the vote people. Take advantage of your freedom and go make a choice. Even it it's raining cats and dogs.

Many happy election day returns!

P.S. Oh wow...who would have seen this coming?

On Cultural Movie-Film for making Benefits of Us

Jay and I went to see the Borat movie yesterday. Holy cow, was that ever funny. The theater was packed, and I wound up sitting next to some guy who reeked of alchohol and kept swigging from a flask during the whole movie, but I still enjoyed it. Warning though, it's not for everyone. It helps to be familiar with Sacha Baron Cohen and the stuff he's done before, and parts of it is kind of ewwww graphic, but we both liked it a lot.

Afterwards we went to McGrath's Fish House, since Kelsey was sleeping on her friend's boat again. Then I quilted the rest of the night while Jay went to a friend's birthday party. I watched Saving Private Ryan while he was gone...I thought Band of Brothers was infinitely better. I think I'm in an anti-Tom Hanks phase for some reason.

Oh, and for those who have been expecting packages from me for like.....forever - I finally made it to the post office yesterday! The nephew is getting his in two pieces, mainly because of shipping box sizes and lack of packing material. Part two is coming with me on the plane at Thanksgiving.

Thanks yous, very nice, great success.

Second lifzzzzz

Yeah, I've been hearing a lot about Second Life lately, so this being a boring rainy Friday night, I thought I'd give it a try. Very unimpressive. On the surface it sounds really cool and fun, but in reality the lag is horrible, the character interface sucks, and it was a real snooze. I did like the flying bit, but the rest is pretty lacking. Maybe I just hit it on a bad night...I might try again if the circumstances all line up right. But then again, I might just take a nap.

Neil Patrick Harris is the latest celebrity to out themselves. Good for him, and double good for all the gay gentlemen out there, because that kid is cuuute. Now if Tom Cruise could only make an honest man of himself :-).

Bad timing

So I heard from my friend Jason the other day...he's in Ft. Collins, CO right now doing his thang. He'll be back in Seattle over Thanksgiving, and he asked if I wanted to go see Bodies with that Friday. However, we will be in Austin then so I don't get to A) see the exhibition or B) see Jason. I could still see the exhibition I guess, even though my very own Jason isn't really into seeing cadavers in various life-like poses. I'm mostly bummed about not seeing my friend Jason, because I haven't seem him since the summer and I miss him.

The Anthropology test today was way easier than I expected it to be. I'm pretty sure I only got a few questions wrong, so I'm expecting an A. The study guide that she passed out for the test was totally bogus, and barely had anything to do with the test. I'll be glad when this quarter is done. Next quarter I'm taking Medical Terminology online, with the same professor that I had for Anatomy, and she was really cool so I'm stoked about that one.

The trainer session was good today....more strength training with some more cardio in between. We almost felt like not eating dinner when we were done...almost I said. Instead, we rested a few minutes, and then had meatloaf muffins and mashed potatoes. Yummy :-)